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If it's truly free of charge and routine, it's probably bad business. The only excuse would be if the other charges made would more than make up for the "lagniappe". "Free" pre-press (or bindery or mailing) is a warning sign that making and holding on to money might not be the primary focus of...

No Title I get different configurations. Interior and exterior removals. The one that tripped me up most recently was 2M "donut boxes" on 20pt board with some intricate insertion tabs. (See attached sample corner, 2.5" tall on the box edge). Stripping the waste took "forever" (i.e., 3 hours)...

Die cutting from steel rule dies is a pretty straightforward process to estimate in terms of presswork. It's pretty much figure how long to make ready, figure IPH, and run with it. Trim out is also pretty straightforward. Just figure cutting time. But waste stripping seems to trip up a lot of...

I think the investment you would have to make in a machine would be far more than you could profit. (I'm assuming the capital investment for a roll-to-roll duplicator or press would be at least 25000 USD, used.) I suggest you consider ordering from a label printing house that does work "for the...

You might be on to something there, Joe. Good luck.

Simple answer: supply what is wanted. Don't waste time on the unwanted. That's why grocery stores usually survive better than all other businesses.

Which of course brings us back to the underlying problem: managing expectations. Show me the salesperson who can confront this level of ignorance and swinish willfulness constructively and I will show you a salesperson who is very unusual. Yet, if a customer is unwilling to accept this very...

The problem with Keith's approach is that your customer should be somewhat intelligent and your invoice really should call attention to the fact that "one order of 250 costs £35" (or whatever) and that they are getting a concession because of the multiple orders. I have seen cases where...

Assuming that you are looking for a text weight or cover weight coated sheet, you should be able to find 25.5 x 38 sheets from most paper merchants. That size can then easily be cut to 25.5 x 11, losing a 5" x 25.5" strip. If you don't have the cutting facilities, a trade printer or trade...

You might want to check with a trade bindery in either Shreveport or Little Rock. This would be a pretty much run of the mill project for a trade bindery. If you wish to do it yourself: print (or copy) all the sheets as individual sheets (NOT collated), run all the sheets through a folder, set...

I would suggest that you visit the GraphExpo. There were several such machines there two years ago when I went, high capital investment and square footage, but the throughput and quality were right on the money and seemed to require relatively small training. (If a salesman can do it...

What kind of a digital press are you using? You are going reel-to-reel and there aren't many reel-to-reel digital machines. Do you have the option of running flexo first and then the digital?

Gang runs are often a challenge, especially so in the high-quality sectors of the market. If you are printing "pleasing color" rather than exact matches, you can often do ganging. I suspect that you could do that because you are mentioning only a CMYK inking system. The best thing is to try...

Find out what your competition is charging. If you don't know that, all the budgeted hourly costing in the world will do you no good at all. (Because you won't know whether you are beating your competition on price or not. It's often not important to beat your competition on price, but if you...

Biggest challenge in pricing is to get the costs right. An intrinsic part of that challenge is that you are trying to put a money value on intangibles and uncertainties. "Will it REALLY take 80 hours on the machine and if it comes in will we destroy any relationships we have spent years in...

You ought to be able to find a used Miehle vertical for under $2,000. For the amount of use that you speak of, a V-20 would be quite adequate. Probably would meet your weight requirement, too. You may wish to consider jobbing the diecutting out to a local trade shop... if my only use for a...

We have a Moll pocket-folder/gluer (Blue model) and get a ripple on one pocket when we fold stock heavier than 12 pt. (See my picture of a sheet of 14 pt.) The ripples average about 7/16" apart with about 1/8" variance and happen only on the outer edge of the pocket on the operator's side. It...

Usual pricing that I have seen in copy shops, using their copier to scan, has been standard copy charge for the size of the sheet being scanned. Plus a disk charge and a minimum setup. ($15 seems to be common for the added charge.) So, in a shop charging 4¢ a copy for 3281 "straight-thru" full...

SWAG price: about $14K (retail) for over-the-weekend delivery as shown (includes overtime for workers, with no additional markups). I question jrsc's price of $5384 + bindery... 49¢ (retail) per perfected 12x18 trimmed to (2) 8.5x11 seems low to me on a job like this, even with a normal...

I'm up for it. I'll make a commitment to review one quote a week. I will probably occasionally throw in a "message from my sponsor" without mentioning names... after all, I'm doing it with company resources on company time. But it will be brief, truthful, and hopefully not too mercenary. I'm a...